


I'm to Blame

by lilisdivine



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Exes, F/M, Unresolved Feelings, You'll Probably Hate Him, actually he's very ooc, but everyone told me to post so here we are, but it was needed, but there's also one scene directly from 5x03, but they're hurt, exes in love, i think, jughead is a little ooc compared to canon at the end, jughead's a little bitch, kind of a prediction of their season 5 arc, post 5x03, so is betty, so it's okay, their argument is kind of stupid, unresolved feelings... remain unresolved, you'll probably hate betty too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29219412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilisdivine/pseuds/lilisdivine
Summary: It's been seven years since Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica promised to meet each other once a year at Pop's.Only Jughead showed up the following year.At least, that's what he thought.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 6
Kudos: 47





	I'm to Blame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bugheadfilms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugheadfilms/gifts).



> Thank you to @bugheadaie, @3amcoles, and @bugheadfilms on twitter for giving me the idea and encouraging me to write this.

_May 2022_

_Jughead sighed as he looked at the drops trickling down the window._

_They’d promised a year ago that they would show. They’re not here._

_It’s not like he expected them to remember. After all, after they all left for their respective post-high school plans, they all lost touch. He lost touch with Archie because Archie didn’t really have the time, being in the Army. Veronica, he never really talked to her anyway. Betty he’d cut all contact with, mostly for his own sanity._

_Regardless, none of them showing up hurt him worse than the last year had._

_“Another refill, Jug?” Pop asked._

_“Uh, no. I’m good.” His voice was rough. “I think it’s time I take off.”_

_“I’m sorry they didn’t make it. They’re probably just busy,” he offered._

_“Yeah, probably.” He knew that, but hearing it out loud felt worse._

_As he stood up to put his jacket on, he heard the bell to the diner ring._

_A blonde girl and a red-headed boy walked in front of him in the near distance. It was as if his whole life flashed before his eyes._

_It wasn’t them. He was unsure if he should have felt relieved or worse about it._

_Pop put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you drove your motorcycle here, and I’m usually not supposed to do this, but Tabitha’s on duty. If you need a ride home I can drive you.”_

_Jughead smiled at him and nodded, and Pop went to go notify Tabitha that he was taking an old friend home and then heading out for the night._

* * *

_May 2022, 3 hours later_

_She walked into a deserted diner. Not a soul was in sight except for a young girl, perhaps about Betty’s age, whom she’d never seen before._

_“Hi,” the girl greeted her sweetly. “Just pick a table and I’ll be right with you.”_

_Betty nodded at her and picked the booth that she sat in with Veronica the night that Betty rekindled her long lost childhood friendship with Jughead Jones. That was Veronica’s first time meeting him, and she raised an eyebrow after hearing his first name. She had to repeat it a couple times to make sure she wasn’t just hearing things._

_Betty chuckled at the memory._

_After a few minutes, the girl walked over to Betty’s table. “Okay, sorry about that,” the girl said cheerfully. “What can I get for you?”_

_“Just a vanilla milkshake and some fries, please.”_

_As she waited for her food, tapping her fingers on the table, she opened her phone to see if Veronica or Archie texted to let her know they were on their way. They didn’t. Jughead might’ve texted... if he hadn’t blocked her number just weeks after they broke up the year before._

_“So what brings you to Riverdale?” The girl asked as she handed Betty her food. She had the same warm and welcoming personality that Pop did, and it comforted Betty in a way._

_She sat in the booth across from Betty. She squinted a little to see if she could read her nametag. Tabitha. Betty had thought she heard Pop talk about his granddaughter named Tabitha a few times in high school._

_“Family and friends,” Betty smiled. “I was, uh... I was supposed to meet some old friends here today, actually,” Betty chuckled. “I’m from here, and my high school friends and I used to come here at the end of every school year. Buy a milkshake, make a toast to another successful year. We made a pact after graduation that nothing would change.”_

_“Well, if you were all destined to be friends, you’ll find your way back to each other eventually.”_

_Betty decided she’d show up every year that she could._

_For six years, she did._

_They never came._

* * *

October 2028

“You wanted to see me?” Betty asked gently as she closed the door to the Blue and Gold behind her. 

“Yeah, actually,” Jughead’s voice was rough as he sorted through the newspaper stories. He cleared his throat. “Where’s your story?”

“I-I-I’m sorry, are you not the new Editor-In-Chief? You know, the one that’s supposed to read over it before you publish it?”

“I am.”

“Okay, and I told you my internet was down for the past few days and asked you to meet me at Pop’s the other day so I could give it to you. You didn’t show.”

He picked a pencil up, the eraser facing the table as he drew circles on it. He laughed to himself, but she could tell it wasn’t sincere. “Ah, God. Doesn’t it just _suck_ when you make plans with someone just for them to bail on you and never tell you why?”

Betty arched an eyebrow at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Just that we all promised to keep in touch and it never happened.”

“Do you mean that little pact we made after graduation?”

“Yes, Betty. What else?” 

“You hypocrite!” She yelled.

“Excuse me?”

“I went. Every. Single. Year.” She punctuated each word with a harsh knock on the table. “I went every single damn year hoping you, or Veronica, or, hell, even Archie would show up! None of you did. Not fucking once. But I’m not holding it against any of you like an immature middle school child!”

He waited to make sure she was finished. “ _I’m_ the hypocrite?! What about you telling me to be honest with you and then straight up lying to my face for months about whatever the fuck it is you did with Archie?”

“I apologized for that years ago! Okay, and it’s your decision to forgive me or not, but you’re acting like a child. Think about it: you’re upset with the three of us because we had plans and didn’t show up at the same time you did. Put Archie and Veronica aside. You’re upset with me not only because I didn’t show up at the same time as you, but because I never called you. But _you_ blocked _my_ number. I can’t say I blame you for that one, but please. Tell me what the hell I was supposed to do.”

“Leave campus earlier. Ask your mom to use her phone to call me. I don’t know, Betty. Something!” 

“Jughead! I lived in New Haven, okay? I’d just gotten done with finals. And it’s not exactly a short drive either. I had no estimated time of when I was getting there. But I would’ve been damned if I didn’t take up the chance to see some of my best friends, even if there was the slimmest chance they would have shown up.”

He was silent.

“If you want someone to blame, point that finger right back at yourself,” she said harshly. “Ask yourself why you didn’t show up after our sophomore year, our junior year, our senior year,” Betty counted off on her fingers, “Or, you know, any of the years after that until you decided to conveniently show up only after Archie called.”

“Maybe I wasn’t ready to see you.”

“Then why the hell are we having this conversation, Jug?”

“I said maybe. It was a conflicting time. Part of me hated you, and the other part of me had missed you so much and wanted you to show up. And now that you’re back in my life,” he scoffed, “I feel more conflicted than ever.”

“What’s there to be conflicted about? It’s been seven years. You’ve moved on to someone else.”

He could only look at her.

“You have moved on, right?” She asked. 

“You don’t know me at all, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Betty, I have never, and probably will never, say anything to you that I don’t mean.”

“Again, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He rested his forehead in the palm of his hands and sighed as he said, “I meant what I said when we broke up before you left for New Haven.”

“That I should focus on myself and you should focus on Iowa?”

“You went to an Ivy League school, Betty. I _know_ you know that’s not what I meant.”

She did. She knew exactly what he meant. Unsure of how to respond, she stood silently, biting the inside of her cheek.

“I still mean it, by the way.”

“Not that I care,” she did care, “but why are you still with someone else if you don’t—“

“Love her? I do. Just not the way I loved you. I just haven’t let myself love like that in a long, long time.”

There was a weight the size of an anchor that pulled her heart right down into the depths of her stomach. 

Before she could say anything else, he cleared his throat and said, “Just have the story on my desk by Monday morning, okay?”

“Jug...”

He felt as though he had been too vulnerable with someone he could barely trust, so he put his walls back up before he could get hurt again. “Unless it’s a problem?”

“No, not at all. I just—”

“Then no offense, Betty, but I have stories to read over. You know how it goes. You were the Editor-in-Chief for four years.”

“Yeah... of course.” 

Betty grabbed her jacket and purse from the coat rack and rushed out the door. Her head spun, her heart was broken for him because of what she did, and her body was numb. She tried to compose herself. 

“What kind of mess did you get yourself into?” she silently whispered to herself.


End file.
